Your Eyes
by Puff Pastry Breadbug
Summary: Nothing alive could exactly become water. But maybe there was a next best thing. K  for almost-suicide.


Your Eyes

Piers's mother had told him a story when he was little, about spirits who helped people overcome their troubles. When their duty was done, they melted into the waters of the ocean, filling it with wondrous creatures and life.

Piers glanced over the side of Gaia Falls, thinking about the preposterous idea. Even a non-Lemurian knew that nothing alive could exactly _become _water.

But maybe there was a next best thing.

Piers began to sweat, concentrating his Psynergy on the water around him. Dispelling the treacherous currents around the edge of the world was hard work, but it gave him time to think. He looked at the falls again. White mist filled the air around him, yet down, wherever the falls went to, was black, black, black.

Did he really want to go there?

But there was no place left for him; He was unable to go to his beloved Lemuria, and no place on Weyard's surface – the gardens of Lama Temple, the gambling tents in Contigo, or the mountainous paths of Champa – would ever appeal to his soul.

But the biggest hole – or holes – was where his friends should be. Felix, Jenna, Sheba; even Isaac and his friends, whom he hadn't gotten to know as well. Neptune knew where they were – Imil, Vale, or even stuffy Alhafra.

There were special things he knew about his friends, things he kept in his heart – Felix's giant grins, which were so rare, but so happy when they were there, Jenna's insistence on trying every piece of armor and every single weapon in all the shops they visited, even when she knew she couldn't use them, and Sheba's good-natured insults at her friends' sometimes clumsy battle strategies. He missed them all.

And the big question: _Did they miss him?_

"U-um, Piers?" A timid voice shook close to his ear. "That's a very long drop."

Eddy. The only Djinn to stay with him after the group split, the Mercury Djinni, like its receding namesake, was very shy and quiet – not at all like his boisterous friends Spring and Serac.

"Eddy, I-I need your power," Piers's face was a red a Jenna's hair. The strain of keeping himself from flying off the ocean was beginning to take its toll on him. He felt the small raft he had taken from Contigo rumble slightly. Instinctively he looked at the water. a thin yet deep current had begun to run under the boat, pushing the raft out of its circle of calm water.

"Eddy, I need it NOW!" Piers felt his body almost fold in on itself.

Eddy started to murmur strange Djinni words, then let a steady stream of blue energy flow from itself to Piers.

But it was too late.

All at once thousands of currents burst through the protective wall of Psynergy. Piers desperately shoved his power into the water, but it began to push him towards the edge.

In a last-ditch attempt, Piers froze the ocean's water, only to have the cruel ice rip the raft into pieces.

With nothing to hold onto, Piers and Eddy went tumbling over Gaia Falls.

"GET AWAY!" Piers screamed over the roar of the waterfall to his companion. "YOU STILL HAVE A CHANCE!"

But Eddy, surprisingly, gripped Piers's shoulder even tighter, putting on a brave yet resigned face.

"N-n-no! C-cowardice is a c-c-c-crime!"

Pier's blinked back tears. One of Jenna's favorite sayings.

Slowly, the roar of the crashing waters faded into a distant echo, an afterthought of the mightiness it was before. The water enveloping him glowed an almost soothing light blue, twisting itself around his body.

"Why did you betray me?" he whispered to the water. In response, a small thread of it wound itself around Piers's hand.

"I'm so tired…" Piers began to close his eyes. Death was almost peaceful.

"Oh no you don't, buster!" A defiant female voice echoed through the water. It sounded like Sheba's.

A young, feminine face appeared out of the water. Brown hair danced around her face, and two rather obnoxious bells dangled from her robe.

Piers instinctively tried to bow. "Coatlicue," he said reverently.

"None of that," the goddess said impatiently. She melted back into the water.

"This is one of the few times I'm going to agree with _that_ dope," snickered another voice.

"NEREID!" The loudest voice of all resounded through the water. Piers felt in his bones that this voice was heard throughout the endless waters. "I AM WARNING YOU, DAUGHTER!"

Two more faces melted out of the water, one a young girl riding a sea turtle, and the other an imposing man, carrying various mechanical instruments.

"Boreas," Piers said as respectfully as he could. The man whom you had revered as a god your entire childhood was an imposing figure to meet.

"PIERS," was the simple reply. "AND EDDY, I SEE AS WELL."

"Oh my. He knows me." Eddy fainted.

Nereid drew close to Piers, complaining about past incidents. "Ugh, you did not need to summon me against that dumb Wonder Bird, my clothes were covered in soot for days. Even _here _it takes time to do laundry."

A threatening glance from her father silenced her.

"NOW PIERS, IT IS MY UNDERSTANDING YOU CAME TO GAIA FALLS TO 'END YOUR SUFFERING'. WHAT DO YOU MEAN?"

"Well, sir, I was lonely. All my friends had left, I didn't know where they were, and-"

"Enough!" Coatlicue snapped, appearing from the stream of water. "You think we like living here? We can only talk to the gods we're close to, and we're constantly melting in and out of water every day. The only time I'm not a stream of water is when I'm being summoned by an adept, and even that is rare and only lasts a few seconds!"

Piers was dumbfounded. "You-You _are _the water?"

"INDEED," Boreas bellowed. "THE MOTHER OF ALL OF US GODS, GAIA, SCATTERED US AROUND THESE FALLS TO RESTORE THE WATER POURING OFF THE SIDES OF WEYARD BACK TO THE OCEANS AGAIN AND AGAIN, SO WEYARD WOULD NOT DRY OUT. EVEN THE GODS OF VENUS, JUPITER, AND MARS MUST BE CONFINED TO THIS PRISON."

"Without water, you wouldn't exist!" Nereid chimed in.

"But why do you tell me this?" Piers asked.

"There is _life _out there, Piers," Coatlicue said sulkily. "Unlike us, you can live it. I'm sure that Weyard we change for the better with the Golden Sun's arrival. New lands, caves, mountains, forests…" she trailed off. "So go."

"But-but how?" Piers asked.

Nereid's turtle slapped its flipper against its head.

"Cut me a little slack, will you?" Piers said angrily to the giant creature.

"PIERS, THE WAY OUT IS SIMPLE," boomed Boreas. "GAIA IMBUED SOME OF HERSELF INTO THESE WATERS. FIND REASONS TO GIVE LIFE ANTOHER TRY. SURELY OUR CARING MOTHER WOULD LISTEN TO YOUR DESIRES."

"But wait!" Coatlicue reappeared right next to Piers. She drew out of her robe four pieces of seemingly flexible water. "These will lead you to your friends. They will listen to your heart and go where your mind says to." She slowly receded into the waterfalls.

"NOW LEAVE, PIERS. THE REALM OF GODS IS NO PLACE FOR HUMANS, EVEN LEMURIANS."

Once Piers really thought about it, lots of things were good reasons to stay alive. Eddy, when he wasn't scared, was a constant source for puns and witty remarks. A little boy in that tiny Gondowan Settlement had become an adventurer, and told vivid stories of his explorations throughout Gondowan. Lady Hama, Ivan's sister, had shown him how all the tiny trees grew in Lama Temple. The people of Kolima were making amends with the once-evil Tret.

_All those small things_, Piers thought. _All those small good things, like Felix's grin, or Jenna's stubbornness, or Sheba's brutal frankness were what made life better._

So with a powerful surge of Psynergy, Piers prayed to Gaia. _I will make this last_, he promised. He flew out of the water, heading towards the surface.

When Piers regained consciousness he was clutching onto a piece of his broken raft. Eddy was sitting on his head.

"WE'RE ALIVE!" Eddy hollered joyously.

"Yeah, yeah." Piers got onto the raft piece and looked around. Atteka was very far away, and the shores of Osenia were at least a day's journey.

Piers took one of the three pieces of bendable water. "Please take me to Felix."

A strong current arose, and blasted Piers towards the Gondowan Cliffs.

As Piers and Eddy cut through the waves, Piers took another piece of flexible water out of his bag. He stuck it vertically into the water. He waited until he heard someone say, "_What in the world?_"

"Hello, Coatlicue." Piers smiled.

"Oh… hi, Piers. Why'd you send down one of my trackers? It's permanent – now we'll always be connected."

"I know."

"Oh."

Piers looked around.

"Today, there's not a cloud in the sky. Seagulls are flocking everywhere. In really shallow spots in the sea, you can see all sorts of kelps and seaweeds. Oh! I just saw a bright yellow fish. It was swimming really close to the surface. Hey, I can see Gondowan! It's looks pretty flat until the middle and the northern part. There's tons of mountains there."

Coatlicue listened to Piers's descriptions of Weyard.

"Why are you telling this to me?"

Piers's tone softened.

"Coatlicue, I'd like to be your eyes. Maybe then you can see the world I live in."

In the waters, Coatlicue felt a few tears come out of her eyes before she melted away into some water.

"Thank you."

And so Coatlicue listened about the world that was so close, yet so far away from her.

But finally, she could _see_.


End file.
